Long Island- a few good weeks
Trip Start
Jul 31, 2009
1
6
Trip End
Ongoing
Sag Harbor, New York, United States
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
We came here in our summer cruise in 2007 and my view changed 180 degrees. Long Island is a fascinating place to summer. I guess this should have been an un-surprise given that the Hampton's draw the elite to the sunny beaches each summer. But heck, I thought the Hampton's were in Connecticut. How would I know.
In reality Long Island has many great and charming places. Here is a bit of the high spots we encountered in this summer's two weeks on Long Island.
After our transit of the East River, we made our stop at Port Washington (see last entry). PW as Ill call it is the closest major city before New York. Naturally, there are a lot of folks who work in NYC that choose to live here. Its a wealthy and place. We had been here a couple times earlier but never devoted more than a night or two. This time, we wanted to see more.
Port Washington is very cruiser friendly. We entered the harbor and called the Harbor Master to inquire as to the availability of "comp moorings". Hey what a deal. We picked one up and dropped the dink. Later, we found that it was a two day comp. Ok... great. Then later, we walk by the harbor master's office and I ask. "How long can we stay"....."two nights....but it you drop the mooring, circle around and pick it up again, you stay another two nights....get it?". Yes we got it and that is what we did. It was great too.
One of the highlights of stopping here is the ethnic food. At the top of the list is Ahyon's Greek restaurant. They put out a Greek buffet and its fabulous. We had to make that stop. Not to suggest I'm "Food motivated", but we made several other food stops in the week there notable. The best (IMO) was Rosa's Pizza near the Long Island RR station. Not only did I conclude this was some of the best Ive ever had but they also had a "pasta night" where you get salad, pasta and desert for ten bucks. What a deal! For this price, I expected a small portion, a simple recipe and tiny desert. In reality, we got great salad, full sized pasta portion and a 3"x6" "slab" of tiramisu that was so good it brought tears to my eyes.
We also had a good experience at the Manhasset Yacht Club. As members of the South Carolina Yacht club we have reciprocal privileges. I decided to see what that really meant, so Sue and I walk into this very formidable looking club house at the water's edge. I became very impressed when the club manager come down to greet us in the warmest of ways. We went there for several days to use their pool and restaurant. I really nice club dating back to the 1800s.
Oyster Bay was a second stop, but only a short one. We had understood there were lots of things we could do near by including the summer home of Teddy Roosevelt. We had also wanted to stop at the nearby college of my later father in law: Webb Academy. We ended up doing neither. As friendly as Port Washington was, Oyster Bay was not. Not only was there little to offer the cruiser in town, but after having a decent night at anchor, the next morning we were promptly ask to leave by the Harbor Patrol. We were told we had to anchor 3 miles away and dink in. Only private moorings available near the town. We prompty hauled anchor and left.
We still want to stop to the the TR home and Webb, but we will do it from Port Washington on our return. No more Oyster Bay.
Port Jefferson was our next stop. I had heard or read that PJ was an industrial port and one that did not have much to offer. It just happened to be a logical stop on the way to Sag Harbor. We had really liked Sag last time and felt it was our real destination. But we laid a course for PJ as a one night stop.
PJ is on a large natural harbor accessible via a fairly small inlet pass. By 1700, I'm ready to enter the pass. To my pleasant surprise its a bigger place than expected and not crowed at all. We anchor over on the south eastern corner in 20 feet of water. Perhaps a mile from the town. This is an easy dink ride in the morning.
The next day we dink in around noon and find a very pleasant town with a good number of interesting looking bars and restaurants. Also some summer theater and music. We also have a nice visit with folks a the town museum and learn about the boat building heritage. Of course like countless places we have visited, industry has long left and back-filled by tourism. Its a scary thought- the US can not sustain itself with but tourism. It used to be Id say tourism and real estate agents. Now real estate agents have bitten the dust.
One nice happening, I got a call that our friends Chip and Kay about Beso (Nordhavn 40) were en route to PJ too and would be in by 1800. Great. We really like then and we always look for a chance to have drinks and dinner with fellow cruiser.
So shortly before 1800, Sue and I are on land. I look out and here comes Beso. They anchor near us out in the harbor and before long C&K meet us at the local watering hole. Later we migrate to a one of those 'shrimp in a basket' kind of places. The food disappointed, but he conversation was great.
The weather was deteriorating quicky so we got into the dinks and headed back to the boats shortly before 9pm. I'm not a big fan of coming back in the dink at night. We carried our PFDs (life jackets) and a flashlight...I moved out slowly and then I saw Chip the throttle on his outboard. This was one of those "bat out of hell" scenes. He went so fast, it scared the hell out of me. I worry too much about hitting something at night. Anyway they made it.
Our night was not so easy. A major storm had been forecast and it came in about midnight. It was really blowing....maybe 35kts or more. I don't worry too much about the boat. Our ground tackle (anchor and chain) is very robust. But when I woke up at 0630, I was very clear we were in good shape....but minus the dinghy. Nothing in sight. Had it broken away? How, I tied it well as usual. Was it stolen? Oh.....S**T....It must have been stolen. In fact, i was sure I heard a boat come near about 0400....yes that had to be it.
Sue and I are beside ourselves. I'm envisioning about a 6 grand hit and two days of lost time while we go back a ways and buy a dink and engine. I had already spent much more on repairs than planned this year. :(
Then I grab the glasses (binoculars) and I see it washed up on shore at about the high water mark. We were lucky. A call to Sea tow and I was in their boat going to shore. I pulled it into the water and we were again tied up on the mother ship. We were lucky. I still didn't understand how it could have broken loose. Had the three beers I downed on shore resulted in a faulty tie? This mystery will be revealed later in the blog.
I was too embarassed to tell my friend Chip, so when we left harbor at 1100 I just called on the radio and never mentioned a word.
Sag Harbor is easy to like. Who am I to question the likes of Madonna, Jerry Seinfeld and other notables who happen to own summer places near by. Its fairly boater friendly. Plus there are several other areas nearby that we can anchor for variety. I figured we might spend a week there. We also wanted to attend one of the concerts at the Perlman Music center on nearby Shelter Island.
We anchor with plenty of room out side the breakwater. As someone said, if you are outside the breakwater no one cares what you do. I was here one other time and a guy sat on his boat and played the saxophone for a hour a night. Good thing he had talent.
The first night was more than exciting. It was about 8:30 in the evening when we saw a 45' sport fish running at high speed in toward the breakwater. Sue saw it and I saw it as the boat hit the well marked rocks at full speed. It raised out of the water and came down in silence. I looked close to see it was going down feeling like they must be taking water. Nothing. I radioed and made contact "this is the trawler at anchor about a 1000 feet from you....are you ok"? The radio came back "Yes, 10-4". I had my questions as 10-4 is not boat vernacular. But as it happens they weere ok. Any about 2 in the morning they were towed into the yard. I was told 100k of damage. This was a real violation of rule 1- Dont do stupid things. The rocks are well marked on any chart. I suspected the reason they were not towned in for 5 hours was it would take that long to sober up.
Sag Harbor an interesting place too as many yachts are on moorings here from various part of the world. Its only a 10 minute dink ride to the tiny, single dinghy dock the city allows cruisers. Its not great, but it works. From there you are immediately in the quaint little town. Its full of tree lined streets, quaint shops, the IGA market, a movie house and a number of restaurants and bars. As you might expect, its no inexpensive to eat out here. Being retired (more or less) I often look for happy hours and meal deals. Just for fun, I went into the bar at B Smith's place right on the water. B Smith is very upscale and I had scant hope, but I went up the bar keep..."hello friend, any 'happy hour' here"??? . With a smug, I was told, "you mean like 'two for one'.....NO (read with attitude)". OK, I guess I was told.
Sag Harbor is the home of $6-7 beers so .....I find nothing happy about that. We drank on the boat here.
Of course any cruise has a few surprises. We had one when one morning the generator would not charge the batteries. When we anchor, we use about 200 amp/hours of power per day for lights, tv, microwave, computer. We replenish that by running our genset (generator) for 1 1/2 hours a day. Today the battery charger woudl not engage and charge the batts. This is pretty much a hard stop. So we went into the local yard for repair. Lucily it was not a big deal and we wwere back in the anchroage the next day.
It was a very nice 10 days at Sag. While I did my drinking on the back of First Forty we found a few good dinners, took the bus to the Hampton's three times, went to the fabulous beach on the Atlantic side and even saw a very enjoyable play "Dinner" which was running at the theater right across from the dinghy dock. This was really a good time.
We also made it to the Perlman concert. Going over to Shelter is one of my wife's favorites. Its a bit of an effort, but worth it. We go in a very shallow creek and up into a salt water lake inland. There we anchored. It was beautifully. Not only that it offers wind protenction not available in the Sag anchorage. It was blowing again one night and we were happy to take shelter on Shelter.
We also went over to the other end of Shelter Island and took the bus out to a little restautant we liked last time called the "Elbow Room". Its a little dive like place about a half our back on the bus. My wife thinks they have the best prime rib in the world. Who am I to question. So we bus out there and fall asleep when we return...so full of outragious beef we can hardly stand it....wonderful.
After about three weeks on Long Island, we were about ready to say so long and move toward Newport Rhode Island. It was a very nice visit. The weather had been pretty good but spotted with occasionally heavy storms. Folks had told us it had been raining for weeks straight and now it seemed to be over.....or was it. Stay tuned.
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